Around the ADEA Policy Center

This month ADEA Educational Research and Analysis portfolio
released the results of the Annual ADEA Survey of Dental School Seniors: 2013
Graduating Class in the August issue of the Journal of Dental Education. The annual survey collects
selected characteristics of seniors graduating from U.S. dental schools and
responses to questions such as the reasons students pursued a career in
dentistry, how students financed their educational debt and students’ plans
following graduation.

On average, the educational debt, undergraduate and dental
school debt combined, reported by the 2013 cohort was over $215,000, which was
nearly $20,000 more than in 2012 (see Table 8). Seniors attending public
schools reported average debt of $189,000 and seniors attending private or
private state-related schools reported a markedly higher average level of
indebtedness at $249,000, which has been a continuing trend for the past two
decades. Since 2012, the average debt upon graduation increased 8% for private
or private state-related schools and 9% at all schools and public schools when
normalizing to constant dollars. Dental students are also entering dental
school with an average $45,000 in undergraduate debt, a 21% increase over 2012.
Despite the increasing debt load, nearly 11% of the 2013 seniors indicated they
will graduate without any debt (Table 10).

Most of the seniors either planned to pursue private
practice (48%) or continue their educational training as a student, resident,
or intern (33%) on a full-time basis immediately after graduation (Table 19). A
much smaller percentage intended to pursue a full- or part-time position as a
faculty/staff member at a dental school (0.5%) or with the armed services (6%)
directly following graduation.

Slightly more than half (51%) of these graduating seniors
said they intended to work in an underserved area at some point after
graduation (Table 22). An overwhelming majority (86%) said they either agreed
or strongly agreed that providing care to all segments of society is an ethical
and professional obligation (Table 43). And when asked about their extramural
clinical rotations, 71% of these seniors reported that the experience at least
“somewhat influenced” their interest in treating underserved populations, while
79% said the rotation improved their ability to care for diverse groups of
patients (Table 35). Twenty-seven percent reported that their extramural
clinical experience influenced their plans on where to practice “much” or “very
much;” however, a similar percentage said it did not influence their practice
plans at all.